KCMO District Loses Accreditation

Interim Superintendent Stephen Green and Acting School Board President Derek Richey address the media after the accreditation vote. Photo by Sylvia Maria Gross/KCUR.

By Sylvia Maria Gross

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kansas City Missouri schools will lose their provisional accreditation on January 1, after a vote this afternoon by the state Board of Education. In a recent review, the district met only three of 14 accreditation standards. District officials said they plan to move ahead with the transformation plan laid out by the previous superintendent.

This vote comes less than a month after superintendent John Covington abruptly resigned to take a job in Michigan. Interim Superintendent Stephen Green said the radical down-sizing under Covington set the stage for the academic changes that are still to come.

"There's no way that you can go through that kind of radical change and not have some bumps in the road," Green said.

The district will work with the Missouri Department of Education on its transformation plan. The district will have until June 2014 to regain accreditation before the state takes over, or the district could be dissolved. Meanwhile, students may be eligible to attend other area districts.

The Kansas City district has a phone line set up at (816) 418-7266 to answer parent questions about the loss of accreditation, and will host community forums Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at Paseo Academy, 4747 Flora and Thursday, Sept. 22 - 6:30 p.m. at Manual Career Technical Center, 1215 E. Truman Road.